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What is Coronavirus?

KUST has organized a panel entitled “What is Coronavirus?” regarding COVID-19 the novel coronavirus on Monday Feb 24th. The panel was consisted of Dr Asos Rasoul (chairman of pharmacy department), Dr Kamaran Karim (faculty member of medical laboratory science department), Mr Vijayaraddi Vandali (faculty member of nursing department) and Ms Zheela Sherzad (lab assistant). Each panelist tried to cover certain aspects of the Coronavirus in details, and the subjects were further discussed in a question/answer session in the end of the panel.

The first speech was held by Ms Zheela, where she introduced the Coronavirus through its history and background. She explained what have been the main sources of this pandemic and the reasons behind the fast spreading of the Coronavirus. She discussed that previous human experience with pandemics, which have led to many progressions in human technology and it has helped the human race to get through the previous pandemics. The most recent info published by WHO was presented and analyzed.

During the second speech, Dr Kamaran classified viruses and explained that the Coronavirus can cause pneumonia and bronchitis, and it rarely can evolve and spread from animals to humans. He discussed the stages of Coronavirus effect, namely the first stage where the virus infects and kills cilia cells and the second stage where the immune system gets activated by flooding the lungs with immune cells to clear away the damage and repair the lung tissue. He also described that the last stage of the illness characterized by respiratory failure due to damage to lung and survived patient will have permanent lung damage and required a ventilator to assist their breathing.

Dr Asos presented the third speech, and he extensively highlighted the common symptoms of the COVID-19 infection and the progression of those symptoms throughout the infection period. He shared the updates regarding the number of cases worldwide, number of deaths, number of patients recovered from the infection, and the countries to which the virus spread to so far. In addition, he gave a general information about the treatment of the symptoms.

The fourth speech was presented by Mr Vijayaraddi where he emphasized on prevention is always better than cure, and it saves money, energy, life and time. He added that the Coronavirus preventives measures are as follows: